They say that in life you get what you deserve. Well,
today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further
into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest
of the world.

This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge
for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced
to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a
fearful,
backward-looking and very small nation.

This should have been the day when Americans finally
answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and
looking outward towards the rest of humanity.

And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls
predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.

But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They
had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless
leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little
rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as
he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no
other reason than greed and vanity.

A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides
cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to
increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural
resources.

And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the
go-ahead for more unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability
and most probably another 9/11.

Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare
them to the polls, then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?

There's only one headline in town today, folks: "It
Was Osama Wot Won It."

And soon he'll expect pay-back. Well, he can't allow
Bush to have his folks whoopin' and a-hollerin' without his own getting
a share of the fun, can he?

Heck, guys, I hope you're feeling proud today.

To the tens of millions who voted for John Kerry, my
commiserations.

To the overwhelming majority of you who didn't, I simply
ask: Have you learnt nothing? Do you despise your own image that
much?

Do you care so little about the world beyond your shores?
How could you do this to yourselves?

How appalling must one man's record at home and abroad
be for you to reject him?

Kerry wasn't the best presidential candidate the
Democrats
have ever fielded (and he did deserve a kicking for that "reporting
for doo-dee" moment), but at least he understood the complexity of
the world outside America, and domestic disgraces like the 45 million of
his fellow citizens without health cover.

He would have done something to make that country fairer
and re-connected it with the wider world.

Instead America chose a man without morals or vision.
An economic incompetent who inherited a $2billion surplus from Clinton,
gave it in tax cuts to the rich and turned the US into the world's largest
debtor nation.

A man who sneers at the rights of other nations. Who
has withdrawn from international treaties on the environment and chemical
weapons.

A man who flattens sovereign states then hands the
rebuilding
contracts to his own billionaire party backers.

A man who promotes trade protectionism and backs an
Israeli
government which continually flouts UN resolutions.

America has chosen a menacingly immature buffoon who
likened the pursuit of the 9/11 terrorists to a Wild West, Wanted Dead
or Alive man-hunt and, during the Afghanistan war, kept a baseball
scorecard
in his drawer, notching up hits when news came through of enemy
deaths.

A RADICAL Christian fanatic who decided the world was
made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and
thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of
engagement.

Which translates to telling his troops to do what the
hell they want to the bad guys. As he has at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and
countless towns across Iraq.

You have to feel sorry for the millions of Yanks in the
big cities like New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and
San Francisco who voted to kick him out.

These are the sophisticated side of the electorate who
recognise a gibbon when they see one.

As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt
and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity.

Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not
only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world
to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets.

The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister
marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport
ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the
world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free
and strong".

You probably won't be surprised to learn of would-be
Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn who, on Tuesday, promised to ban
abortion and execute any doctors who carried them out.

He also told voters that lesbianism is so rampant in
the state's schools that girls were being sent to toilets on their own.
Not that any principal could be found to back him up.

These are the people who hijack the word patriot and
liken compassion to child-molesting. And they are unknowingly bin Laden's
chief recruiting officers.

Al-Qaeda's existence is fuelled by the outpourings of
America's Christian right. Bush is its commander-in-chief. And he and bin
Laden need each other to survive.

Both need to play Lex Luther to each others' Superman
with their own fanatical people. Maybe that's why the mightiest military
machine ever assembled has failed to catch the world's most wanted
man.

Or is the reason simply that America is incompetent?
That behind the bluff they are frightened and clueless, which is why
they've
stayed with the devil they know.

VISITORS from another planet watching this election would
surely not credit the amateurism.

The queues for hours to register a tick; the 17,000
lawyers
needed to ensure there was no cheating; the $1.2bn wasted by parties trying
to discredit the enemy; the allegations of fraud, intimidation and dirty
tricks; the exit polls which were so wildly inaccurate; an Electoral
College
voting system that makes the Eurovision Song Contest look like a beacon
of democracy and efficiency; and the delays and the legal wrangles in
announcing
the victor.

Yet America would have us believe theirs is the finest
democracy in the world. Well, that fine democracy has got the man it
deserved.
George W Bush.

But is America safer today without Kerry in charge? A
man who overnight would have given back to the UN some credibility and
authority. Who would have worked out the best way to undo the Iraq mess
without fear of losing face.

Instead, the questions facing America today are - how
many more thousands of their sons will die as Iraq descends into a new
Vietnam? And how many more Vietnams are on the horizon now they have given
Bush the mandate to go after Iran, Syria, North Korea or Cuba...?

Today is a sad day for the world, but it's even sadder
for the millions of intelligent Americans embarrassed by a gung-ho leader
and backed by a banal electorate, half of whom still believe Saddam Hussein
was behind 9/11.

Yanks had the chance to show the world a better way this
week, instead they made a thuggish cowboy ride off into the sunset bathed
in glory.

And in doing so it brought Armageddon that little bit
closer and re-christened their beloved nation The Home Of The Knave and
the Land Of The Freak.